A review by clovetra
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

i did not expect to like this that much?? i did not expect this book to go how it went either!!!!!
now i’m just gonna say up front - the only reason this isn’t a 5-star is because there was a LOTTTTT of space jargon. the book tries its best to explain it so i at least had some idea but…. i’m sorry by the end i was lost with how much jargon there was. not only was there insane science technical terms but made up concepts???? my brain short circuited it couldn’t keep up. even if i had no idea wtf was going on usually i could excuse that, but i will say when there were paragraphs of jargon by the end i just started skimming because i knew i would just be wasting my own time and hating every second of it. sue me.
other than that? this book was PERFECTION. i get why this guy had his book made into an award winning movie. ngl this needs to be made into one too. idk how they’d make rocky but honestly i don’t care!
grace was so funny and quippy. he did lose a bit of this by the middle, but tbh at that point based on the personality established i had grown to love him without his funny bone rearing its head every sentence so i wasn’t mad. i loved his flashbacks appearing in progression, especially his dynamic with stratter.
now - i gotta spotlight my boy rocky. ROCKY!!!!!!! i started crying over him because i actually just loved him so much. i won’t lie i did have to google illustrations of what the actual fuck he looked like cuz i actually could not imagine it at all. yes i am an avid fantasy & sci-fi reader with slight aphantasia and what? but after i got over that slight hump (i’m so serious i googled a drawing of him literally when his physical description was given so… this didn’t take long) i ADORED rocky. he’s my homeboy.
i actually started panicking because i thought rocky sabotaged the ship at the end. i was FREAKING OUT!!!! thankfully he didn’t or i would’ve been PISSED.
he was so quirky and made up for grace’s lack of funny one liners later.
the world building here also needs a great pat on the back. i mean i imagine the brain behind a blockbuster space movie would be great at world building…. and i would be correct in thinking that. everything down to the hypothetical(?) aliens & planets & situations felt so realistic that i actually forgot this book wasn’t sci-fi and was real. like if i went to space i would see a rocky. i saw on the news tokyo had 100mm of rain in an hour and my brain went “oh yeah that makes sense based on what the prediction surrounding astrophage’s effect on earth” and i had to pause. and realise. oh wait that’s not even real. it’s just raining a lot because of global warming and…. idk rain. not an alien parasite(?). even tho i had no actual idea what was happening on the logistical/technical side of things, from the dumbed down versions of events provided, it felt entirely realistic!!!!! i was so locked in reading this. can u tell seeing i read this in like 3 days as well. 
the relationship between rocky & grace ate so bad. god and the ending too?????? ugh impeccable. no notes. chefs kiss. i had such a fun time reading this.
anyways omw to add the martian to my letterboxd watch list 🫡
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